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Thursday, June 05, 2008

Can I do it???!!

Back in January, I made a resolution to stop being online so much. It was fantastic for a few days, I did great for a few weeks, then started slowly getting back into old habits. Now, once again, I'm addicted :(

Hi, my name is Kerrie, and I'm an internet addict :(

I waste so much time sitting here idly reading stuff. Most of it is really interesting, even educational, but I can waste hours just reading stuff that doesn't really enhance my life in any way. Being away on the weekend was great with no emails - I was still available on the mobile if anyone needed me.

My big excuse is that I need it for work, but even when I'm on here for work I waste time on the net. I recently installed a Firefox add-in called Rescue Time that tracks the time you spend on the computer. You then categorise the sites you visit, software you run etc so you can see how you spend your time. Since I installed it a month ago, I have spent 184hrs on the computer - that's an average of 6 hours per day! Even more shocking - 61 hours of that have been spent under my "blogs/forums" category, 42 hours on email, and 22 hours on "random surfing" - visiting sites that I don't categorise under anything else. Only 23 hours were actually spent "working" (although some of the email time would be work emails). Not very productive :(

I'm trying to get up the courage to have a "no computer" day on Sunday - not turn it on all day. Boy it's going to be tough. But I also need to cut down day-to-day.

The things I tried back in January are worth revisiting:

* Keep a notebook beside the computer so I can jot down things I want to do / look up / write. This worked well - back to using it.

* Move my computer from next to the lounge (which is lovely & comfortable) to a desk (which is probably more ergonomically sound but not as comfortable lol) - this will hopefully stop me sitting down and staying there! Ooops, guess where I'm sitting atm :( Back on the lounge. :(

* Yahoogroups - I moderate / own a few Yahoogroups (LETS, Freecycle and related ones). Rely on other moderators more. I've really stepped back from this and other moderators are doing well. Yay for one thing!!

* Limit my time on the email, and also the frequency I'm checking. Need to get back to doing this, rather than checking every 5 minutes!!

* Work email - I removed my work email address from automatically checking in Outlook, so now I have to manually open it to check. I'm still doing this and it's great. I only check work emails a couple of times / day.

* Blogs / groups - Use folders more to organise my mail. May need to cull?? (eeek!) Have reduced the number of groups I was on, especially the really chatty ones, have gone no mail on many so I only check once / week.

Any other hints for how to manage my addiction? For now, the computer is going off until this afternoon..

8 comments:

Hi Kerrie, I never hardly watch TV anymore and prefer to be on the PC.I don't really have a problem with the amount of time I spend on here yet, but maybe one day. I find it gives me a great escape from a house full of children(ours is in our bedroom) and allows me to wind down. I hope your goal works for you as it is obviously niggling at you to do something. Kym

Yep, have to agree with you there, we might have to form some sort internet addicts anonymous group. I really have to cut down the amount of time I spend on the net as realistically I am doing the same thing that you are. Spending lots of time on the net with no real reward. Im particularly bad at reading blogs and visiting forums - can you tell lol. Anyhow I think I might limit myself to one hour a day now. Best of luck with it - now repeat after me - the world will not come to a end if I spend time away from the computer.

Another addict here. Blogs are my particular weakness. Plus I'm doing a few online scrapbook classing. I've just installed the rescue program as I know I'm probably in denial about how much time I spend on the computer. For the record I would estimate around 4 hours.I have been trying to delete some blogs from google reader so that's a start. Best of luck to us all :-).

I'm afraid it's a trend Kez... I've spent a LOT of my long weekend glued to the computer screen... it's so bright and shiny! And filled with informationy goodness :) By the way, thanks for listing my blog!